U.S. Faces Legal Challenge to Internet-Domain Seizures

One of Spain’s most popular websites, whose American domains were seized as part of a crackdown on internet piracy, asked a U.S. judge Monday to return its property that it claims was wrongly taken.

The Rojadirecta .com and .org domains were seized in January along with eight others connected to broadcasting pirated streams of professional sports.

The legal filing in New York federal court by site owner Puerto 80 Projects represents what is believed to be the first courthouse challenge to “Operation in Our Sites.” Commenced last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has seized as many as 208 domains the authorities claim are linked to intellectual-property fraud.

Puerto 80, which claims the Rojadirecta site sports 865,000 registered users, said it has committed no copyright infringement. The site is a discussion board where members can talks sports, politics and other topics, and it additionally links to sports streams — some of which is pirated.

“The government has not shown and cannot show that the site ever was used to commit a criminal act, much less that it will be in the future. By hosting discussion forums and linking to existing material on the internet, Puerto 80 is not committing copyright infringement, let alone criminal copyright infringement,” (.pdf) according to the site’s legal filing, first reported by TechDirt.

The lawsuit added that “the government effectively shut down an entire website, suppressing all of the speech hosted on it, based on an assertion that there was probable cause to believe that some of the material linked to the website (though not found on the website itself) might be infringing.”

The court-ordered seizures are aimed at web sites that sell counterfeited goods, as well as sites that facilitate illegal music, film and broadcast piracy.

The U.S. government is taking .com, .org. and .net domains with court approval, under the same civil seizure law the government invokes to seize brick-and-mortar drug houses, bank accounts and other property tied to illegal activity. The government, which began “Operation in our Sites” a year ago, leaves behind messages to visitors that the site has been seized.

No hearing date has been set. Puerto 80 said Rojadirecta has lost a third of its traffic.